VAMPIRES. 347 



than I have to doubt the facts recorded. Made cognisant 

 to human nature by that great resultant of law and forces 

 which we agree to call simply Nature, how can any mani- 

 festation to human senses be justly called supernatural ? 



All discovery must have a beginning. Phenomena ob- 

 served before the reason of them is made apparent always 

 seem mysterious. The question, 'how an apple' a gross 

 corporeal thing a material entity, to adopt the language of 

 science- 'gets into the middle of an apple-dumpling,' pro- 

 vokes no nine-days' wonder now ; time was when it puzzled 

 a king. Solomon was a wise man, and so was Socrates, and 

 so was Solon : would they not have considered it a mysterious 

 thing, had they seen messages sent by electric telegraphy to 

 places thousands of miles away ? 



When Pizarro aw^oke the echoes of temples of the Incas, 

 by firing-off his Spanish field-pieces, I wonder whether the 

 Aztec priests did not regard the case as supernatural ? On 

 consideration, I think Mr. Howitt, Mr. Home, and every 

 other gentleman who has had visional relations with the spirit- 

 world, who has touched that fringe of which Mr. Howitt 

 somewhere speaks, the peculiar fringe which, according to 

 him, descends upon earth from some celestial upholsterer's 

 shop up above, will own, on consideration, that nothing has 

 happened or can happen, nothing which has been seen or can 

 be seen, that has been heard or can be heard, that has been 

 felt or can be felt, that has been smelt or can be smelt, should 

 be justly called supernatural. 



I am one of those who have come to the conclusion, that 

 more harm comes of believing too little than of believing 

 too much. For my part, I believe almost everything that is 

 recorded by a man of good repute, provided that my own 

 experience does not disprove it ; and, in a general way, I be- 

 lieve everything that is told me by a lady. It saves a world of 

 trouble, this unlimited faith ; it has the merit of being logical 

 too, remembering how impossible it is to disprove a negation. 



